Nicole Constant
Award of $500 to support fieldwork in support of her thesis on the fan culture of the Rocky Horror Picture Show and how this fan culture relates to religion.

Nikki Cox
Award of $500 to support fieldwork toward implementation of the Folklore Flags student run program database and website.

Sarah Fisher
Award of $500 to support fieldwork toward her thesis on the Merry Pranksters.

Tamara LeRoy
Award of $500 to support field research toward creation of exhibition materials for the River Road Elementary/El Camino del Rio school.

Kirk Peterson
Award of $500 to support field research toward creation of a documentary film project on the continuing emergence of Krampuslaufe and other Krampusnacht celebration events in the United States.

Rachael Steineckert
Award of $500 to support fieldwork toward completion of her Master’s thesis with Mormon women in Salt Lake City who participate in the Ordain Women organization.

Nikki Cox
Award of $500 to support fieldwork in support of her Master’s Thesis or Terminal Project.

Alina Mansfield
Award of $500 to support fieldwork in support of her Master’s Thesis or Terminal Project.

2014-2015 Award Recipients

UO Folklore Program2015 Alma Johnson Graduate Folklore Award

Bruno Seraphin
“”Year of the Possum” and Authenticities: Folk Revival and Reciprocal Filmmaking with the Green Grass Cloggers”

UO Folklore Program2015 Kate Martin Undergraduate Folklore Award

Corbett Robley
“Sexuality in U.S. Naval Folklore”

UO Folklore Program Summer 2015 Research Awards

Bruno Seraphin
Award of $500 to support ethnographic fieldwork with “re-wilders” in the northern Great Basin, in support of his Master’s Thesis.

Tracy Thornton
Award of $500 to support fieldwork in the astrological community in Portland and Seattle in support of her Master’s Thesis.

Research on Science Fiction and Bisexuality wins Recognition, Funding

Jenée Wilde, a PhD candidate in English and Folklore, has received the 2014-15 Jane Grant Dissertation Fellowship for her interdisciplinary research project on bisexual representation, science fiction, and the overlaps among bisexual and fan communities.

Awarded by the Center for the Study of Women in Society, the Jane Grant Fellowship includes a $12,000 stipend, tuition remission and insurance for the 2014-15 academic year.

In addition, Wilde received a Sherwood Research/Travel Award from the Department of English to attend the 2014 Project Narrative Summer Institute at the Ohio State University, where she plans to workshop part of her dissertation. Wilde also was offered a 2014-15 Oregon Humanities Dissertation Fellowship but declined the honor in order to accept the Jane Grant Fellowship.

Wilde says her research approach is unusual for an English dissertation.

“Unlike traditional humanities research, half of my project is based on ethnographic fieldwork I conducted in Philadelphia and Minneapolis in communities where bisexual and fan identities overlap,” Wilde said. “My goal is to challenge the dearth of research on bisexuality in humanities and some social sciences and to demonstrate the untapped potential of bisexuality studies across academic fields.”

“Imagining alternatives to ‘normal’ human life is what speculative fiction does best,” Wilde said. “That makes it an ideal site for exploring marginalized sexual representation and identity.”

The project includes critical analysis of dissident sexuality in 1960s-1970s speculative literature, archival research of a 1980s bisexual fanzine, cultural analysis of contemporary genre television shows, and ethnographic research with bisexually identified speculative fiction fans.

Wilde’s research suggests that the “both-and” logic upon which bisexuality is structured may provide a key to reframing categories of sexual knowledge that depend on “either-or” to understand the sexuality and gender of another. As part of her project, Wilde theorizes “dimensional sexuality” as a hermeneutic method and social science research model that may contribute broadly to humanistic inquiry across the academy.

“I’m trying to intervene in interpretive practices and theoretical assumptions that may contribute to binary gender and sexual norms,” Wilde said. “In short, I want to fundamentally change the logic we use to organize dominant categories of sexual knowledge.”

An article describing Wilde’s theory, “Dimensional sexuality: Exploring new frameworks for bisexual desires,” has recently been accepted for publication by the British journal Sexual and Relationship Therapy. A peer reviewer for the journal called the article “very absorbing and a significant contribution to theorising bisexualities.”

Among other honors, Wilde received the 2013 John R. Moore Scholarship, presented to a student who excels in contributions to the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer community at the University of Oregon, and the 2013 Miller Family Scholarship, presented to an outstanding student in Women’s and Gender Studies. She also was awarded the 2012 Norman Brown Graduate Fellowship, presented by the College of Arts and Sciences for academic merit and potential for academic contributions.

2013-2014 Award Recipients

UO Folklore Program2014 Alma Johnson Graduate Folklore Award

Vanessa Cutz
“The March of the Living: Living Myth”

UO Folklore Program2014 Kate Martin Undergraduate Folklore Award

Leah Greenspan
“Through the Eyes of Peta Pan: Trainhopping, the Associated Lore, and Its Uses”

UO Folklore Program Summer 2014 Research Awards

Vanessa Cutz
Award of $500 is to support attendance at the conference, “From Generation to Generation the Legacy Continues…Honoring Survivors, Liberators, Righteous among Nations, and Their Descendants,” at Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York as well as access archives at the Holocaust Memorial and Tolerance Center and visit the Museum of Jewish Heritage in Manhattan.

Emily Ridout
Award of $500 is to support research and filming of project, “Temple Tours,” in Phuket, Thailand.